Of those people who were homeless here on a cool night in March 2010, when the latest count was taken, some 650 people were sleeping rough, and some 850 would sleep in one of the city’s shelter spaces. Of the 1,500 people counted that night, however, none were children. The city maintains a careful system to guarantee that families will not find themselves living in the street.
And, even the 1,500 people counted that evening represented a low number. Other, comparably-sized cities in Europe have four or five thousand people in their streets each night. “The most important reason for the low numbers here is the safety net of solidarity that people have with their extended families,” said Ricard Gomà, at the time of writing Barcelona’s second deputy mayor and director of a department in the Ajuntament called Acció Social i Ciutadania (Social Action and Citizenry), under which falls responsibility for people experiencing homelessness. “The support network from extended family in Barcelona is as close-knit as you’re likely to find anywhere, and much stronger than you’ll find in an Anglo-Saxon society.”
The city has worked hard to design alternatives for those who do not have a family on which to rely. Five years ago, four people worked full-time with those who were homeless or in danger of winding up on the streets. Today, 50 people do so. “During the past five years, we have built a network between City Hall and various entities,” said Gomà. “We have a goal of social inclusion, and to move toward it we have professionals in the streets every day, identifying homeless people in the initial phases of their problems. In Rome, with five thousand people in the streets, they don’t have socio-educational programmes, nor preventive programmes. I think this is the big difference.”
After the sun goes down, two-person teams go to various districts of Barcelona to make contact with newcomers sleeping rough and let them know what services—shelter, food and showers—are available, as well as to check on the people who live outdoors for weeks or months or years. One cold night in March this year, Valentin Hîncu, a native of Rumania, and Khalid Ghali, originally from Morocco, were walking their rounds of the Les Corts district. Both are fluent in Catalan and Castilian, as well as their native languages.
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